“No!” she grunted, and tried to come down on his instep again, but this time managed to snag his toes through his Italian loafers. With a groan of agony, Flynn suddenly shoved up against her, cutting off any movement in her legs, and her breath, for that matter. “That was really quite naff. No more, do you understand? If you kick me once more, I will retaliate,” he said, and grabbed her shoulder, squeezing a tendon.
Rachel instantly gave up. “Okay, okay,” she cried, trying to move from his hand.
Flynn’s face appeared, floating before hers. “Do I have your word?” he demanded.
With a grimace, she nodded. Flynn let go, slowly eased up, watching her carefully to see if she might try something.
Rachel glared at him, was ready to give him a piece of her mind—which piece, she wasn’t certain—but it was quickly a moot point as she saw the guy behind him who looked oddly familiar.
And then she saw Dagne, who was peeking out behind the guy, smiling and sheepishly waving her fingers.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The newspaper accounts that appeared in the days following would erroneously report that the whole thing had begun with an altercation between two law enforcement officers and a woman in the heart of Harbor Town, when in actuality, the altercation happened much later, in the condominiums where Myron was hiding out.
The only thing that happened in Harbor Town that early afternoon was that Rachel was driven all but wild trying to understand how Flynn and Dagne—who had never met, mind you—and that man, who turned out to be a cop, could be there in that little alley with her.
In truth, there was a bit of shoving, starting with Rachel, who put two hands on Flynn’s chest and shoved him away from her, then stood there, her hands on her hips, fuming as she took in the three of them. And then she looked at Dagne and made her wince by staring daggers at her. “You did this,” she said accusingly, and shoved her. But it was a one-handed shove, and really did not deserve the rebuttal shove she got in return.
“They made me,” Dagne snapped.
“How could they make you? You don’t even know Flynn—”
“I know, but he knew me, Rachel! He knew where I lived and my name and they said—”
“Ah, actually,” Flynn said, nudging Dagne to shut up, “I was hoping to sort of walk Rachel through all that.”
Rachel’s first, horrific thought was that Flynn and Dagne were involved—but that seemed entirely impossible, so she shook her head to clear it, and tried to make sense of what was happening.
“He’s a cop,” Dagne said.
“Investigator, actually,” Flynn corrected her.
“Investigator,” Dagne repeated.
A cop? An investigator? Now she gaped at Flynn, almost believing that Dagne had managed the mother of all spells. Flynn smiled a little. He shrugged. He looked at his shoes. An investigator! How could that be? She’d never seen any guns or badges or anything that even remotely—
“There he is. That’s Myron,” Dagne said disgustedly, and the rest of them jerked their gazes toward the street. Rachel caught just a glimpse of the lying asshole as he went by, and instantly started in that direction, but Flynn caught her by the arm. “We really prefer to follow him, see where he goes.”
“Follow him? Why do you want to follow him? And who is we? What we?”
“We,” Flynn said, gesturing to his companions. “Why do you want to follow him?”
“I don’t want to follow him,” she snapped as Dagne inched her way to the corner of the building, watching Myron. “I want to kill him!”
“Why do you want to kill him?” the stranger asked.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Detective Joe Keating, Rhode Island State Police,” he said, and suddenly pushed Dagne out into the sunshine and followed her.
Flynn obviously thought to do the same, as he put his hand on the small of Rachel’s back and shoved her forward.
But Rachel caught herself on the edge of the building. “Wait. Who is that guy? How are you here? And how do you know Dagne?”
“It’s really quite a long and sort of complicated story, so I’d suggest, if you don’t want to lose your chance to kill the professor, that we sort of chivvy along and I’ll tell you everything later.” He nudged her again.
She did want to kill Myron. Badly. Rachel started walking. But she didn’t like it.
They stepped out from the building, walked a few feet behind Dagne and the other guy up the walk. Several yards ahead, Rachel could see Myron strolling along, a plastic bag swinging from one hand. He turned left onto a street, and so did the four of them, but the guy with Dagne made her pause in front of a shop window while he looked around the corner. And then he grabbed Dagne’s arm and yanked her around the corner with him.
Flynn and Rachel followed, marching in silence, side by side, and they continued this absurd game of chase until Myron slipped into a very nice Town Car. That bastard owed her money and was driving a Town Car.
Flynn, the detective, and Dagne all stopped beside a Ford Taurus.